


Sleepwalking Through Time

by Juliette1713



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15526497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliette1713/pseuds/Juliette1713
Summary: Maggie wakes up one morning in a strange version of reality.  Set sometime in early to mid season 3 - sort of...





	Sleepwalking Through Time

Maggie awoke, immediately aware that she was not in bed alone. She knew she'd gone to bed alone. She also hadn't been drinking or really doing anything to be in the position not to remember, either. And she sure hadn't been doing anything that would lead to some man next to her, his arm draped across her middle, sleeping in her bed. She'd awoken facing her dresser, away from whoever it was. It was the same dresser in her same bedroom but it looked different. Different knick knacks on top, neater and without her clothes piled on it, as was typical for her. She noticed her sheets were different too. Pale gray and soft, but not new, so it wasn't as if she'd bought them and put them on and forgotten somehow. As if she'd forget doing that. 

She looked down at the hand at the end of the draped arm, hoping to glean some clues as to its owner. She immediately regretted it, seeing a wedding ring. Had she slept with a married man? She'd not had the greatest track record with men, but she'd never have slept with someone who was married and certainly not someone so callous as to openly wear his ring while cheating. She sighed loudly, waking her bedmate. 

He, whoever he was, stirred and pulled her close, kissing her shoulder. "'Morning," came his mumble. 

"How long have you been married?" she asked icily.

"Wha'? You okay, O'Connell?" came the sleepy reply, spoken into the back of her hair. That answered that. No one else called her O'Connell. She'd slept with Joel Fleischman. Oh God.

She turned to lay on her back. There he was - wearing a t-shirt and boxers, at least, she'd noticed - he wasn't naked. Maybe there was still some valid explanation for him in her bed that didn't involve sex. His bed rumpled hair looked shorter than she'd remembered it, and his eyes had subtle lines where he crinkled them the few times a year he managed a real smile up here. Which he he was doing as she turned her head to face him. He peeped at her through one half-open eye. "Hi," he said, groggily.

"When did you get married?" she asked, still irritated.

"Is this a quiz? I have never once forgotten, thank you. And which time are we talking about?"

"You've been married more than once?!"

With that, in a flash, he was halfway up, leaning on his arm, looking more alert and concerned. "Seriously, hon, are you okay?" He'd moved his hand to her forehead, the gold band glinting in the morning light with his movement. 

"'Hon'?!" She sat up and looked around her bedroom. It mostly had items she knew, but there were several unfamiliar things and things were arranged differently than they had been last night. The mirror on her vanity reflected their images - him, moving to sit all the way up next to her now-sitting form. She was in a oversized and ratty Columbia t-shirt with a rip in one sleeve, falling off her shoulder, and she was clearly wearing no pants. Was this his shirt? Why would she wake up in bed with Fleischman, wearing his clothes, in her own bedroom unless they'd fooled around?

He wrapped his arms around her, legs moving to surround her, too, where she sat. "June 14. And then June 29."

"What?" She was short-sounding, irritated.

"The wedding date. Dates. Your question. I promise I haven't forgotten. Have I...done something to piss you off that I'm not remembering or realizing?"

She looked at the image of them in the mirror. His arms and legs surrounded her, holding her, and he was looking at her over her shoulder worriedly. Her eyes moved to her own image. Her hair was longer. Not long - it went just past her shoulders - but a hell of a lot longer than the pixie cut she'd laid down with last night. Last night...

She had to ask him. "Did we have sex?"

"Last night? No."

"Good."

"You felt awful and went to bed early. I'm not going to come take advantage of you when you feel terrible. You sure you feel okay now though? You said your head was really bad last night and now you seem kind of... confused." 

"My hair..." she said, still looking at their image in the mirror.

"Mmmmm," he murmured, sweeping it back into a ponytail with his hands and kissing her bare shoulder and then her neck. "It's pretty.... gets in my way though." He kept kissing her, moving slowly up her neck.

"What the hell are you doing?" she pulled back like she'd been burned. 

"Sorry. Too scratchy?" he rubbed his stubbly chin. "I gotta shower anyway. Why don't you lay down and rest while I do that - and I'll shave - you see if you feel better." He untangled himself from around her, kissing her quickly on the lips this time as he rolled out of bed and went into her bathroom, turning on the shower water. He had left the door open. 

"Fleischman!"

He peeked back into her room, wearing no shirt. "Yeah?"

"The door!"

He looked at the door. "What, shut it?"

"Well...yes! Jeez."

He looked contrite but confused. "Okay. See you in a sec."

She looked around the room again, trying to get her bearings. She stood to walk to the mirror. This was his shirt. It was well worn and threadbare in places, but his - she recognized it. Her hair was definitely longer, tangled and mussed from sleeping. Her eyes, too, had the same small lines at the corners that Fleischman's did. If she didn't know better, she'd say she'd aged 5 years overnight. 

She moved around the room, looking for something to explain what was going on. She opened her pajama drawer to pull out some pants for decency's sake for when Fleischman reemerged. She was surprised to find a stack of neatly folded men's boxer shorts inside. She pulled on a pair and left to enter her living room.

It was completely different. Same room, but she only recognized one chair. The rest was different furniture than she'd ever seen - some of it new, the coffee table obviously an antique but new to her. On it were scattered medical journals she recognized as things Fleischman read. His glasses sat folded on top. A flight plan map was unfolded next to them, with her marks on it, the pencil balanced in the crease of the paper. 

A bookshelf sat in the corner, containing a mix of her books and unknown books, all jumbled in together. She walked to it to get a closer look at the pictures in frames on its shelves, none of which were familiar. One was of Holling and Shelly, holding a toddler dressed head to toe in pink ruffles. Strange. Another was of she, Fleischman, and Ed, Ed's hair longer than she remembered. Ed was smiling, and she was laughing. Fleischman was in the middle, arms around both their shoulders, his head turned to her and kissing her cheek. She reached for it with her left hand but stopped when she saw a glint of something sparkling. 

She was wearing a ring on her left hand. Two rings, actually. One, a simple gold band; the other, a band with a diamond solitaire. Was she married? The pieces all came together...

As if to confirm her thoughts, she caught sight of the third framed picture adorning the top shelf. It was she and Fleischman, dancing together in what looked like the Brick. He was in a black suit, and she wore a simple long white dress, empire waisted with short capped sleeves, her hair a little shorter than now, just above her shoulders, a flower pinned above one ear. A flower that matched the one pinned on Fleischman's lapel. Behind them, she could see Holling and Shelly, holding the hand of the same little girl in the same pink outfit. She saw Marilyn, Chris, and Dave. They were smiling, hands together as if they were clapping. Other people blurred together behind them in the crowded bar, watching them dance.

It was a shot of them from the side, with her on the left of the picture. They were dancing close, Fleischman's hand was on her side, his ring visible on his hand. They were smiling at each other, although she couldn't see her face as well as his. He had a teasing grin and his eyes were as happy as she'd ever seen them.

There was no mistaking what this was - this was a wedding picture. From their wedding reception. Hers and Fleischman's. She turned and looked at the living room. It was her house still, but it was clearly *their* house.

She turned her head to stare in disbelief into her - their - kitchen. She glanced back again at the coffee table and picked up the JAMA on top, a sheet from his prescription pad stuck inside it like a bookmark. March 11, 1998. The one beneath it, March 1, 1998. She definitely went to bed in 1992. Was she crazy?

She felt his arms around her, "Feeling better?" He peered over her shoulder, "Doing some light reading? About non surgical treatments for lumbar disc herniation?" He kissed her cheek and squeezed her sides before leaving her for the kitchen. "You still flying today? You feel up to it?"

"Did we get married?" she sat down on the couch she didn't recognize. 

He was wearing his same robe, the gray one with red pinstripes. He gave her a half grin, watching her with concerned eyes. "Yes we did...coffee?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, yeah." He busied himself in her kitchen - their kitchen - making coffee and taking two mugs out of the cabinet. 

She looked around the room, taking in its sameness and differences in shock. Her eyes drifted back to the photos on the bookshelf. There were more on lower shelves, including one of what looked like the two of them with her dad, another of them smiling and wearing sunglasses together somewhere, and a framed formal picture of his parents. His medical bag sat on the ground by the front door, next to a pair of each of their shoes, mixed in together. This was unequivocally their shared place.

He joined her on the couch, passing her a mug she didn't recognize. She looked down, and was surprised to find he'd gotten her coffee exactly right, just the right amount of cream, stirred and everything. 

"O'Connell...honey? You seem like something's wrong. Are you sure you feel okay?" He turned her chin towards him and looked clinically at her eyes. He put his hands to her neck, palpating it gently, feeling her glands. He took her wrist in his hand, to take her pulse, and she shook her hand free.

"Stop! What are you doing?"

He dropped his hands to his lap. "You're mad at me?"

"No! But, 'honey'? We're married? Twice apparently? What's going on?"

His eyes looked hurt. "Don't tell me we're going to have to do it a third time. You keep pushing me off of you. Really, what did I do? I'm lost here. I really did retrace last night and I can't figure out...I tried to check on you after you laid down but you told me you wanted to be left alone so I left you alone. You mad about that? I did keep my ear on you most of last night. Really. I'm not gonna let you get bad sick if I can help it."

"Fleischman... you're not going to believe me on this but hear me out. I went to bed last night and woke up here. But I went to bed with short hair - and was younger. And alone. It was 1992! We were most definitely not married - we've never even slept together. Kissed, even! Well, that time in Holling's kitchen, but that was the ice."

He looked at her bemused. "1992? Huh, so...so before.. the barn thing. Before... before Juneau, even. Huh." He paused, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "You being serious?"

"Yes. And what the hell happened in Juneau? Or a barn?"

He smiled at the memory. "If you're disgusted at being married to me, believe me, you don't want to know. So, fine, you went to bed just you, and woke up to us, huh? You're sure this isn't a dream?" She shook her head, and he reached to gently touch her chin. The way he looked at her was something she'd only seen glimpses of before, and made her feel something she couldn't even start to identify. "I don't know why but I believe you. You don't seem like yourself at all. Oh! Oh... that's why. You hate me still, huh? If it's '92."

"I don't hate you...I mean you're just so... okay maybe a little, I do. I'm sorry." She felt almost bad, he was being so sweet. 

"S'okay. I was a real asshole back then, here and there. I hated you too sometimes. I grew up though. So did you. Me more than you, of course, but..."

"We got married, then?"

He brightened and smiled. "Yeah! Yeah we did. June 14, 1995."

"Your magazines said it was 1998? So we've been married 3 years now?"

"Almost, yeah."

"I'm shocked we made it that long."

He laughed. "We didn't. We didn't make it two full business days the first time. We got married on a Friday afternoon, and you handed me papers bright and early Tuesday morning. It has to be some kind of an Alaskan record."

"I divorced you?"

"Yup. Technically I think it was an anullment, though. We hadn't quite worked out how to navigate each other's tempers yet. We worked it out. Got married here two weekends after that for good. First time was a courthouse in Anchorage, just the two of us, on a whim. I date our anniversary from the first wedding and you do from the second. We've just agreed to disagree on that. And lots of other things." He smiled wistfully to himself. 

"What aren't you telling me? What else happened?"

"Nothing! I can't explain it, you kind of had to be there, is the thing. Which you were, you just don't remember. And if you really are 1992 O'Connell, I'm not spoiling your life any further for you."

"You still call me O'Connell?"

"Yeah. And you still call me Fleischman. Usually, when you're not mad at me. You are Mary Margaret O'Connell-Fleischman, legally speaking. Was just going to be O'Connell, no hyphen, but then you and your mom got into the biggest fight about your not changing your name so you did it to satisfy her. Or to spite her, I'm not sure which honestly. ...But I've only ever called you O'Connell."

"I still fly?"

"'Course. And I still hate flying. So some things never change."

"Kids?"

"Us?! Do we have any kids? Are you suddenly our parents, with that question?" He chuckled, "Well...no...no kids, we decided not to, but we're..."

"We're what?"

"Well, we just had a whole discussion last night about how one of us suddenly changed their mind. So your question is odd and timely."

"Who changed their mind?"

He smiled again. "I can't tell 1992 O'Connell that, I'm sorry. It's private."

She glared at him before deciding he was right and that she didn't want to know. She was overwhelmed by what she'd seen so far. 

"Wait, it's 1998? And you're still in Cicely? Didn't your contract end in...'95?"

"'94. I can leave whenever I want now, so remember that - be good to me."

"You stayed?"

"I fell in love, what can you do?" he shrugged and grinned wryly at her. "With the town, of course. You, I could take or leave."

"Jerk."

A mischevious look crossed his face. "Fine. Since you're so curious about the future, I will tell you one thing...it's pretty great."

"What, the future? Us being married?"

"That, too. But..."

"What? Get to the point Fleischman."

He leaned in to whisper into her ear. "The sex. You'll see pretty soon. It's the most incredible, amazing, life affirming, earthshaking, soul shattering sex you've ever had. Just about every time, too. Trust me. We're very good together. You know how little we get along and agree?"

"Yeah," she said breathlessly.

"We're different in bed." He leaned back and kissed her cheek again. "Okay, hon. I'm taking you back to the bedroom."

She panicked a little. "Wait, we're not going to..."

"No, no, no, I can't imagine doing that if it's with you from the past, and not you-you, anyway. You from the future will castrate me if I cheat on you, and I'm pretty sure somehow, some way, she - you - would not be okay with this. Plus, who knows what it'll do in terms of influencing decisions you make and changing the future. Space time continuum, all of that. I'm thinking if you go back to bed you might wake back up in 1992 and my O'Connell will return."

He walked her back into the bedroom and she laid down. Bristling at his adjective use, she pointed out, "I'm not and will never be 'yours,' Fleischman. I'm not property. Okay?"

"You've spent years making sure I know that, thanks, I'm well familiar with the concept."

"...So it's pretty soon?"

"Huh?"

"We have sex pretty soon? Back in '92, I mean? Do we get together after that?"

He just smiled in response.

"Come on - is it Juneau? Does something happen on a trip we take to Juneau?"

He kissed her on the forehead. "Can't tell you about your future. It's bad enough you know we end up married. I guarantee you neither of us knew this'd happen, and it was probably better that way. Plus some of those twists and turns were really...necessary to traverse together. In retrospect. Look, I love you. Safe travels. Go to sleep." He tucked her hair behind her ear and left. 

She closed her eyes when she heard him shut the door. The next thing she knew she was in her bed in the dark. She sat up and lifted a hand to her hair, feeling how short it was. She was back. Or it had all been a dream? She could still taste the coffee she'd had though...

She got out of bed - it was only 5:15 am but she knew she couldn't sleep now. She headed towards her kitchen to start a fresh pot of coffee, replaying the revelations from her odd dream. She looked out at her darkened living room, remembering how foreign it had looked before. Everything appeared to be in the right place again, at least. She saw something move and jumped. 

"O'Connell? What are you doing banging around so early, jeez?"

"Fleischman?!? What are you doing on our - my- couch?"

"I was trying to sleep until you flipped the light on and started clanking dishes around at this ungodly hour."

"Why are you sleeping *here*, I mean? In my living room?"

"There is some kind of animal in my cabin."

"What?"

"That was my reaction. I don't know what it was or what it wanted but it had fur and it growled at me so I came to my wonderful landlord's to sleep since she doesn't feel the need to ensure my home is secured from predatory animals. She wisely elects to always leave her door unlocked, ironically, since she has no animals coming into her place, while I, who always locks my door, am in fact inundated with..."

"For God's sakes, Fleischman, will you..." she trailed off. His sleep-tousled hair, tired expression, and baggy shirt made him look adorable. She couldn't help but smile. He squinted at her through sleepy eyes, "What?" For a second, she saw that look in his eyes again. And felt that same feeling she had, sitting on the couch in her dream. Or whatever it had been.

She was overwhelmed by a feeling of fondness for him. Was she really going to marry this man someday? She smiled in spite of herself. 

"C'mon Fleischman. We're both up. I'll make you breakfast."


End file.
